Nico Müller wanted more overtaking opportunities at Zolder

Audi Sport Team Abt Sportsline driver Nico Müller was the top finisher for the Ingolstadt-based manufacturer in today’s DTM race at Zolder, scoring a podium finish. The podium was his second of the season, but the Audi driver says he could have finished higher up if he had more opportunities to try to overtake BMW’s Joel Eriksson.

Müller qualified in eighth place on the grid, did a good start and was one of the fastest Audi drivers in the initial stages of the race. He matched winning driver Philipp Eng’s (BMW) strategy, coming for his mandatory pit stop at the end of lap 12 and had a hard fight with Eriksson in the closing stages for second place.

“I’m very happy to be on the podium, collecting points for third place,” said the Swiss. “I was in a fight with Eriksson, we tried everything to get past. He defended well with a clever strategy.

“It’s super difficult to overtake here so and I tried to keep the pressure up until the end, but I was struggling with tyre degradation myself in the closing stages. In the end, I’m very pleased with the work we’ve done today after the compromise in qualifying, so we’ll work from here and try again tomorrow.”

Müller is the best-placed Audi driver in the championship in third place, six points behind BMW’s Marco Wittmann.

Audi Motorsport boss Dieter Gass was unhappy with the outcome of the race, highlighting the effect of the two laps added to the race distance because of the safety car intervention.

“It was a difficult race, the safety car added a lot of extra laps,” said Gass. “Unfortunately there wasn’t much overtaking, because I think there were a few situations where we could have been a bit quicker but we didn’t manage to overtake. I think that, with our result, we have to look at the situation and see what we can come back with tomorrow.”